Chinese Shan Shui Paintings （山水画）

1) Shan Shui Paintings

Shan Shui Paintings (or Chinese traditional landscape paintings 山水画) may look very strange to the eyes of the Western people which are familiar with oil landscape paintings and maybe to the eyes of the other non-Chinese people too. The strangeness is not only at the first seeing but mostly may continue unless you study some about Shan Shui Paintings. On the contrary Chinese Flowers and Birds Paintings are not so strange as Shan Shui Paintings and even make the eyes and hearts of the Western people comfortable and pleasant which is the nature of good visual arts in general.

China has a huge population and very long history but their culture has been more unique than universal in the world. Shan Shui Paintings are particularly so. Generally, it is not easy to understand and appreciate Shan Shui Paintings. You must study them. Shan Shui Paintings are encoded so that you must decode them to understand the meanings of them.

2) Literati Paintings

Chinese Literati Paintings were developed very early much earlier than 1000DC. The definition of Literati Paintings is not so simple. They are not always the paintings made by Literati. Chinese Literati preferred poems and calligraphies to painting in art and mostly preferred philosophies and histories to arts.
There have been many good 'painters cum calligraphers' but not many good 'painters cum poets' although painters often wrote poems on their paintings. And almost no good 'painters cum philosophers' and good 'painters cum historians.


AAG